This invention relates to floor tiles, and more particularly to interlocking floor tiles for covering a floor or other surface.
Floor coverings and ground coverings, both permanent and temporary tiles, are well known. For example U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,438,312, 4,436,779, 4,054,987, 5,791,114, 6,026,625 and 6,098,354 are of interest and are incorporated herein by this reference.
Interlocking floor tiles, of the type that are typically installed on top of an existing floor, have traditionally required installation by placing one tile down on the floor after the other and interlocking the respective tiles through some type of interlocking system. When the tiles need to be removed, even temporarily, the tiles have traditionally been required to be disassembled one tile at a time. This is, of course, time consuming and very inefficient, particularly where the floor tiles are to be reinstalled in a short period of time.
While tile of these prior types have been generally useful for their intended purpose, the need remains in the art for a floor tile system will that assemble into a unitary and structurally stable floor covering, which can be rolled up, either in whole or in part, rather than requiring that the multi-tile floor be disassembled into its plurality of individual tile.
The present invention provides a thin and generally flat or planar ground/floor tile having edge-located interlocking members, both male and female, such that a plurality of individual tile pieces can be assembled into a floor covering. In various embodiments, the floor covering may have a square outer periphery, a rectangular outer periphery, or a more complex outer periphery that may contain a plurality of square, rectangular, or even curved edges. Irrespective of the outer periphery of a floor covering, the multi-tile floor includes four or more orthogonally extending exterior floor edges.
While the invention will be described while making reference to floor tile that are square, the spirit and scope of the invention is not to be limited to this particular right-angle quadrilateral shape.
Each of the tile in accordance with the invention includes at least one orthogonally extending hinge or fold line, such that a multi-tile floor can be rolled up, beginning at one floor-edge, without the need to disassemble the floor into its individual tile.
In this manner, and in accordance with the invention, the multi-tile floor can be rolled up, as a whole or in small sections, for example, to move the floor or to store the floor. Rolling up of the floor is started by manually lifting any one of the floor""s exterior edges, and subsequently pivoting this lifted edge back about the hinge or fold line to start the roll-up process. Sequentially lifting the next tile section and pivoting it relative to the next hinge or fold line (which runs parallel to the first hinge or fold line) continues the roll-up process. The roll-up process causes the floor tiles, which remain interlocked, to form a hollow tubular shape, as tile are bent along the above-described hinges or fold lines extending parallel to the axis of the tubular floor roll.
In one embodiment, each tile in accordance with the invention was about one foot square, and the surface of each tile contained four linear fold lines. Each individual fold line is located parallel to and about three inches from one of the four orthogonal edges of the tile. In this way, each tile was divided into nine areas, i.e., four 3xc3x973 inch corner areas, four 3xc3x976 inch middle-edge areas, and one 6xc3x976 inch center-area.
More generally stated, each of the four linear fold lines or hinges is located one unit of measurement from one of the four linear tile edges. In this way, the tile is divided into nine areas, i.e., four one-unit-by-one-unit corner areas, four one-unit-by-two-unit middle-edge areas, and one two-unit-by-two-unit center-area. When a plurality of these square four-unit-by-four-unit tile are assembled into a multi-tile floor, the multi-tile floor contained a plurality of two-unit-by-two-unit center-floor areas, four one-unit-by-one-unit corner areas, and a plurality of one-unit-by-two-unit floor-edge areas.
The abutting edges of each tile are, in one embodiment, secured to up to four adjacent tile. That is, each tile""s edge-disposed locking members operates to physically attach the tile to an adjacent tile. The locking members are constructed and arranged using male and female members so that the locking members do not release when the multi-tile floor is rolled. Thus, at least in the embodiment shown, the assembled floor""s abutting edges do not comprise floor fold lines or hinges in accordance with the invention.
The foregoing and other features, utilities and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of a preferred embodiment of the invention as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.